president obama was then-senator obama -- guest: your command of the numbers is terrific. the question about the media. honest --ed, let's be you have to have a strong voices inside the democratic party and a strong voices outside in the movements of our time an independent media to call the mainstream media, and we can discuss what mainstream media means, but there is a mainstream establishment media which has as its working premise the idea of the cult of balance, something our media columnist, eric alterman, has written and what about i-- has written a lot about. if someone went on to the floor of congress and said the earth is flat, the media would write about both sides as if both were true. i mentioned norm ornstein earlier. he is no liberal progressive. he is sort of right of center, he is at the american enterprise institute. thomas mann at brookings road book that had a large section about the failures of the media to call out untruths. we have a lot more fact checking in the media, which has its ups and downs. at the debate last night, the bank act it obama on th